Category Archives: Twitter

Probably the most important thing you can do this year to increase your chances of success – apart from writing your brilliant book, of course – is to boost your web profile. If you’re looking for inspiration, why not try:

tweeting or facebooking as your book character

tweeting or facebooking as your villain!

blogging a serial

creating a collaborative blog with other writers

creating a magazine-style publishing blog

tweeting micro-fiction

creating an interactive story

All these ideas are discussed in detail in my article Get Creative with Social Media in Writing Magazine, February 2013 (available in the UK in WH Smith). Plus ten tips for getting creative, and a step-by-step guide on using WordPress to create an interactive story, just like I did.

Twitter is getting all creative this month with the first Twitter Fiction Festival. It’s running for five days from 28 November to 2 December and you need to have your idea approved first to take part.

They are looking for original ideas that push the boundaries of what Twitter can do in terms of telling stories. This is new, exciting territory so be as creative and lateral-thinking as you can! I’ll be sending off my submission form this weekend. The deadline is 15 November and the successful authors will be announced on Monday 19 November. It would be nice to see some well known authors taking part but this is also a chance for an unknown to make their mark with a cracking idea.

Like this:

I have signed up to Twitter in order to stalk some of my favourite writers and find out what’s happening in their worlds. There’s something about Twitter that’s more intimate than following a blog or visiting a website; the equivalent of being passed a note under the desk at school from the popular boy at the back of the classroom.

I don’t know if Twitter will be a permanent fixture in our fast-moving media world or if it will be regarded in the same way we do the Rubik’s Cube now: the symbol of an era, fun at the time but really – why?

I’m also not sure quite how to negotiate through the millions of twitterers out there. It seems like a tornado of information whirling around without order. Perhaps just letting a little bit through at a time will help; hence I will keep the list of people I follow small while I get my head around what it’s all about.

If you like the same children’s authors I do you might want to follow:

@jasperfforde

@davidwalliams

@Patrick_Ness

@ScottWesterfeld

@garthnix

@kdueykduey

I will be tracking down some more of my literary heroes over the next few weeks. If you would like to keep me company (I will be tweeting about the writing process, the books I’m enjoying and any good leads I get on submitting children’s books), please click on the Follow@LouTreleaven button on the right as I currently have only 1 follower who is a piece of spam.